Shadowing Practice: I’m begging you to manage your time - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Forget everything that you think you know about productivity.

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Forget everything that you think you know about productivity.

Literally throw it out the door because it's not going to help you here.

And in fact, I'm going to change your entire mindset around this.

We're talking about a time management secret that's completely backwards.

The more you slow down, the more time you actually have.

Now, I know that sounds completely insane, but just hang in there and I'll get into it.

Before we do that, though, I do want to preface that this is not going to be anything motivational.

So if you are looking for toxic motivation, this is not the video for you this one will be.

You're not going to get a hustle harder mantra from this

because I'm talking about real life scenarios that I went through

and how I'm able to manage my time but also manage my workload.

The first crucial shift that you need to have is that you need to slow down to actually speed up.

Stop trying to squeeze every second out of the clock unintentionally and the keyword there is unintentionally.

So let's cut the nonsense and dive deep into this so that it will make more sense to you.

Firstly, you want to set a clear goal.

I know this sounds so easy to say

and a lot of people say the same thing but what does this actually mean?

If you don't have a real set goal then you're not

going to know what destination you're going to go towards and therefore you're not going to know the journey.

For example, if you know you want fried chicken, that's one goal aka you want the good grades, but you don't know where you're going to get the fried chicken,

then you're just gonna walk around aimlessly and hoping

that the fried chicken shop will be there

but it's never gonna be there

because it's in the next town over that's the exact same

with your studies right now you know you want to get good grades

but because you don't have the goal set to get there you're just wandering around aimlessly pretending you're studying

but in reality you're wasting your time

so you want to ditch the useless goals like saying i'm gonna work on my project today that's gonna be pointless.

You want to be specific and be as realistic as possible as well.

Don't say, I'm going to learn an entire syllabus in just two seconds.

Obviously, that's not going to work.

And instead, it's going to set you back because you're going to feel so anxious about not being able to do it.

What you want to do instead is to say something along the lines of writing 100 words

or writing 500 words for my essay before noon or finalizing the presentation outline by 3 p.m.

In this way, you give yourself some dopamine hit because you feel like you've done something, so you feel like you're winning And secondly,

it also breaks the goals down in order to have a very specific tangible thing about it

So that you can actually track the progress of your goal itself Once you have that, it makes it a lot easier for you to break it down into smaller actions For example,

with the essay before, you can write down the outline first Afterwards, you can then write down the draft And once that's done,

you can then revise it So there's an actionable step each part of the way

so that you actually know where you're going and what road or path you're taking to get to your goal.

And this focus action was the one that changed everything for me.

When I didn't figure this out yet, I was literally all over the place and it meant

that I was juggling a lot of plates but they were all falling apart.

But by doing this, I started to see a lot more of what is going on in my day-to-day life

and therefore I can fit my studying around my entire life.

For example, if I have a social or an event

that evening with the society and we have a meeting in the morning about it

and then I have to come in early in order to set up the event, speaking to teachers, blah, blah, blah.

But also I have a tutoring session at 2pm

and also I still have to make content for my TikTok

and then I also have an exam tomorrow then how I'm gonna plan

that is to literally schedule my study sessions in between every

single one of them it takes me half an hour to go from home to uni I'll study in

that half an hour I'll study again in the half hour back I study during lunch break

while I'm eating my food I'll study during lessons when I know the topic already.

Sometimes the content is pretty obvious

and therefore I don't need to kind of sit there

and listen through it which means I can study for other subjects during my lecture time

and therefore I save a lot of time already.

But all of this is done by saying I'm gonna finish one pass paper by 2 p.m.

I know that at 2 p.m.

I have my tutoring session so between that time whatever free time I have I'll be working on my pass paper.

This honestly makes it a lot less overwhelming for me so give it a go.

Now I'm gonna give you a hard truth.

Rushing is what's screwing you over.

You think faster equals getting more work done but it's not the case.

You don't end up having six packs just from doing 100 squats within five seconds.

Just because you're fast doesn't mean you actually get the muscles quickly and that's the exact same with studying.

Again same thing what you get instead is just stress mistakes

and you end up feeling so miserable

because you're like oh my god I didn't complete it I

didn't complete it I shouldn't have done this I shouldn't have done

that I should have done this instead I should have done

that instead and you just end up spiraling out of control

and instead you worry about it and you lose the time

that you could have used to study because you end up worrying

so much when you deliberately slow down you work smarter you then become intentional with your time

and you make fewer errors and think more clearly in that case you get in control.

And I want to say this is a trick but it really isn't.

It's just that most people don't do it.

Start earlier than you need to.

Have what's called as a contingency plan and this is a plan for

when something happens out of your control that you still have enough time to complete whatever studying you have to do, whatever essay you need to do, whatever it is.

For example if it's the Christmas holidays, I don't actually know what my plans are going to be for Christmas most of the times

but I do know that when I go back into university in January I will have an exam.

So that means I will start planning to study from like end of November at least

or like early November

and depending on the subject how many months how many content I have to cover

but I try to start as early as possible and then give myself two weeks before the actual exam as contingency.

This means that

if in the holiday season something does come up where I

will be going out with my friends going out with family

going on holiday whatever it is I already have two weeks

planned at the end of it for me to have

that in case time so I still have that time to study

if that makes sense it also means that I actually push the deadline forwards

and I intentionally try to finish all of my studying two weeks early

if I do complete that two weeks early then good I have two extra weeks to relax but

if not I still have the two extra weeks to complete

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my work you see what I'm getting at here like no matter what you're still gonna win

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because you've set yourself up for winning so when

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that happens you have less frantic mindset you're not as scared

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and therefore you actually finish more work

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because you're not thinking about it 24 7 next one i talked about quite a bit as well

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and i talked about it in this schedule video

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so have a look at that one

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but it's to not ignore the compound effect of doing small

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study sessions every single day instead of doing 15 hours a

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day you want to instead do just small 30-minute sessions every single day.

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This does two things.

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Having the 30-minute sessions more regularly than the one-off cramming sessions means

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that you are applying your spatial repetition and also your active recall, which will allow you to stick the memory of the subject in your mind for a lot longer.

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So this means if you have your mocks this time, but then your exams next time and it's going to cover the same topic, you're still going to remember it then.

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You just need to briefly refresh it, but you will still remember the majority of the content

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because you've done the correct techniques to make it stick in your brain.

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So when that happens, you actually have the compound effect of all of the things that you're learning accumulating with one another.

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And this creates a momentum like a snowball literally rolling down a hill.

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Real growth comes from working smarter consistently and letting the process handle the rest.

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Now, sidetracking a little bit, this is a bit relevant to it, have you ever heard of task paralysis?

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Now this is very common with those of you who have ADHD.

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My boyfriend has this.

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My boyfriend was recently diagnosed with ADHD

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and therefore I got this idea of talking about this because it seems quite relevant to time management.

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If you have ADHD or you're neurodivergent, it's a bit more difficult for you to manage tasks as compared to other people.

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So what I do or what my boyfriend does specifically is to do simple tricks in order to break it.

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Firstly, we do study crawls together or we move to open spaces where we work in cafes, where we study in cafes.

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And this is purely because your body needs a reset from your normal day-to-day lives.

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Once you start doing something, like for example, if you start studying in a study room or if you start studying in bed, your brain just kind of gets used to it.

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And when your brain gets used to it, it gets bored.

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So what you need to do is to consistently switch between places

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and this is what me and my friends did during my A-levels as well.

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We would switch between four cafes every single day in order for us to not get bored of one

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and make sure that our brains are still there in a way.

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Secondly, body doubling.

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By having somebody there studying with you, it feels a lot easier for you to study.

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So when I was studying by myself, if I didn't have anyone to study with me, I would watch a study with me on YouTube in order to feel that as if someone's studying with me.

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They don't even have to be working at the same thing as you.

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Just having their presence there will help you to actually work better.

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I think it's all about the accountability at that point

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because you're constantly thinking like oh my god I don't want to stop studying

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because then they're going to judge me etc etc. Like I definitely feel

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that all the time whenever I'm like studying in a cafe.

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And thirdly you want to use the reward system.

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Now it really depends on the type of person that you are.

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For my boyfriend for example he loves tech so if he wants a new technology, he would have to complete a certain amount of work for

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himself in order for him to be able to get that basically.

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So he sets himself like a big reward.

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But obviously, that's not always feasible.

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So it's better to set yourself some small wins and therefore some small rewards as well, maybe a treat here and there.

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But again, if you have ADHD and your neurodivergent, a lot of the times it might be that you just get bored of that small rewards.

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So you have to mix and match it as you go along and see what works for you.

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I can't say the same for everyone because ADHD

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and neurodivergence is very much so dependent on each person and it's very much so on a scale.

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But positive reinforcement will motivate your brain to keep going.

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The next thing you need to do to tackle your time management issues is going to be to eliminate distractions.

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Now this seems so obvious like

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if you are distracted by your phone then put your phone in another room

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or what I do is I film myself studying

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and then i put it onto tiktok or i go on tiktok live stream

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but obviously you don't have to do

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that literally just having your phone up on the camera as

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if you are filming yourself is good enough and the reason for

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that is because every time i reach for my phone

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and i want to use it i see myself doing it

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and because i see myself doing it i get like shocked

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and i stop doing it so the practical trick is to not fight them

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but instead to manage them you can even have like a focus session set on your phone

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which blocks off the other apps that you're not allowed to use

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so for me i have work which will turn off all notifications

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that are from social media and also

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when i do go on social media it automatically puts it on a timer for me

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so that i'm not on social media for like five hours for example doom scrolling

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and if you don't want to use

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that you can also negotiate with yourself on this

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so tell yourself okay i'm gonna watch tiktok for five minutes

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but then after that i have to do a 20 minute study session something like

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that now one last trick that i want to tell you is to delegate wherever possible

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but i study alone how do i delegate it to someone

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delegating here means lightening your mental load by using tools

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and systems firstly delegating to an app instead of trying to

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force your brain to have every single information out there why not use a task manager like Notion,

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Todoist, Motion, whatever it is that you want to use, have the app remembering it for you and organizing it for you so your brain doesn't have to think about it.

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Secondly, delegate to automation.

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So for me, it would be like what I said with my phone before.

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When I set it to work, every time I go on a social media app, it sets a timer and therefore that's one form of automation.

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You can also delegate to software.

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So using voice to text for drafting or Grammarly for editing, these tools will handle the repetitive mechanics so you can focus only on the content itself.

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In this way you are still in control but you have the help

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that you need in order to take off a lot of the pressure from yourself.

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One last thing your productivity will be slow at first trust

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me on this I don't want you to then come off of this video try it for one day

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and then completely give up because it's not going to be fixed within a day.

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It's going to take some time but you will get there.

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The best systems are the ones that works perfectly for you and you customize it for yourself.

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Yes, all the things that I've done here are based on my experience and therefore have worked for me, but not every single thing I say here right now may have worked for you as well.

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Try it out and see if they work.

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If they don't, revise and adjust accordingly.

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So maybe instead of you using like live streams on TikTok, you can instead use, I don't know, throwing your phone into the bin or something like

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that to make it more productive for yourself and not be distracted by it.

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So always try and adjust things here and there to see if it works for you.

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So here's the key takeaways that we've said so far.

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Firstly, you want to slow down to speed up.

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Start early, break big goals down, be consistent with the small efforts, break paralysis with movement and dopamine, manage distractions, delegate the boring stuff to your tools,

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and you want to drop the toxic hustle culture.

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Time management is about using your attention wisely, not overdoing it because then you will have no attention span whatsoever.

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You have the time that you need in order to complete your tasks so don't worry, slow down, you will get there.

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So if you like that video, don't forget to share it with your friends and if you are done with the rush of life, then make sure to give me a like as well and subscribe to my channel if you haven't yet.

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Tell me below what small thing you're gonna slow down and do in order to get more done.

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See you, bye!

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See you in the next video.

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Bye!

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Shadowing Practice: I’m begging you to manage your time - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Shadowing Practice: I’m begging you to manage your time - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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What is the Shadowing Technique?